Sex: Sexual activity involving arousal, pleasure, and bodily connection. It may happen with or without love or emotional closeness.
Intimacy: A deep sense of closeness created through trust, vulnerability, honesty, affection, safety, and emotional connection. It may be physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual—and does not require sex.
(Thank you, ChatGPT, for the definitions.)
Throughout our years on this Earth, many of us have engaged in sex—some for far longer than others. Sex can become a distinct exchange of bodies, fluids, and Souls. We engage with partners, situationships, and strangers. Some of us have also experienced sex in ways that tainted our understanding of it even further.
Yet, how many of us are familiar with intimacy? How many of us take the time to feel with our whole selves and not just our private parts? How deeply are you connecting with the person you’ve decided to give yourself to?
Sex may be an easy exchange for most, but recently, I’ve found it difficult. For most of my life, sex was used as a bargaining chip, a mood stabilizer, an argument deterrent, and a means of control. It was how people defined my importance in their lives. Sex became the end-all, be-all for many of the relationships I was in.
Add being molested twice—once as a child and again as a teenager—and being thrown into prostitution into the mix. Those experiences created a woman who had no idea what true intimacy felt like.
Intimacy doesn’t begin with satisfying your partner. It begins with recognizing yourself.
I thought giving in to my partner’s every desire was intimacy. I thought being hot and ready like a Little Caesars pizza was intimacy.
Boy, was I completely wrong.
Intimacy starts with YOU!
How safe do you feel? How close do you feel? How deeply do you feel for this person? Are you ready to be vulnerable? Do you TRUST yourself with this person? Are you being honest with yourself in this moment?
Intimacy asks questions of YOU—not just the other person.
True intimacy allows you the safety to be completely vulnerable. Naked in the Spirit and the flesh. All flaws seen for the beauty they are. All beauty even more defined. All truths laid to witness.
This is intimacy.
Intimacy is truly a scary place to be—but it is also fulfilling and rewarding. See, intimacy doesn’t hide behind or within sex. Real intimacy comes before sex is even thought about.
Most of us believe intimacy leads to sex. It can, but it doesn’t always.
It can lead to long embraces, passionate kisses, stillness, and oneness. It can lead to hour-long conversations with no real ending. It can lead to clarity, understanding, and emotional comprehension.
It’s easy to drop your drawers, but can you drop the act?
It’s easy to plant kisses, but can you plant rehabilitating thoughts?
It’s easy to take off your clothes, but can you take off your armor?
The hardest thing to do is often the best thing for you—but you can’t do it with everyone.
This blog is not suggesting that you share your deepest vulnerabilities with every living Soul. But honestly, is creating more genuine human connection such a bad thing?
There are many different levels of intimacy. It is up to you to discover what they mean for you.
I am, however, suggesting that you pause the sex.
Become intimate with yourself.
Learn you.
Understand you.
Discover what you like, what you love, and what you disdain.
Allow yourself to become intimate with YOU before becoming intimate with someone else.
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